Two more water-children were consigned to the care of Jizo before Chiyo made another pilgrimage to the mountains. This time she took the living baby’s navel cord as an offering to the goddess and returned with another woven talisman.
Shigeru was four when his brother was born. The second son was named Takeshi. The Otori favored names with Shige and Take in them, reminding their sons of the importance of both the land and the sword; the blessings of peace as well as the delights of war.
The legitimate succession was thus secured to the great relief of everyone, except possibly Shoichi and Masahiro, who hid their disappointment with all the fortitude expected of the warrior class. Shigeru was brought up in the strict, disciplined way of the Otori, who valued courage and physical skill, keen intelligence, mental alertness, self-control, and courtesy in grown men and obedience in children. He was taught horsemanship; the use of sword, bow, and spear; the art and strategy of war; the government and history of the clan; and the administration and taxation of its lands.
These lands constituted the whole of the Middle Country from the northern to the southern sea. In the north, the port of Hagi was the Otori castle town. Trade with the mainland and fishing the rich northern seas made it prosperous. Craftsmen from Silla on the mainland settled there and introduced many small industries, most noteworthy the beautiful pottery: the local clay had a particularly pleasing color that gave a fleshlike luster to the pale glazes. Yamagata, in the center of the country, was their second most important city. Trade was also conducted in the south from the port of Hofu. Out of the Three Countries, the Middle Country was the most prosperous, which meant that its neighbors were always eyeing it covetously.
IN THE FOURTH MONTH of the year after Kikuta Isamu’s death, the twelve-year-old Otori Shigeru came to visit his mother, as he had done once a week since he had left the house he had been raised in and gone to live in the castle as his father’s heir. The house, which was built of wood, with verandas all around it covered by deep eaves, was located on a small point near the conjunction of the twin rivers that encircled the town of Hagi. The farms and forests on the opposite bank belonged to his mother’s family. The oldest part of the house was thatched, but his grandfather had had a new wing constructed with a second floor and a roof of bark shingles, an upstairs room, and a staircase made out of polished oak. Though Shigeru was still a few years off his coming-of-age day, he wore a short sword in the belt of his robe. This day, since his visit to his mother was considered an occasion of some formality, he wore appropriate clothes, with the Otori heron crest on the back of the large-sleeved jacket and divided wide trousers under the long robe. He was carried in a black-lacquered palanquin, with sides of woven reeds and oiled silk curtains, which he always raised. He would have preferred to ride-he loved horses-but as the heir to the clan certain formalities were expected of him and he obeyed without question.
He was accompanied in a second palanquin by his teacher Ichiro, a distant cousin of his father’s, who had been in charge of his studies since he was four years old and had begun his formal education in reading, writing with the brush, history, the classics, and poetry. The palanquin bearers jogged through the gates. The guards all came forward and fell to their knees as the box was set down and Shigeru stepped out. He acknowledged their bows with a slight inclination of his head, and then waited respectfully for Ichiro to extricate himself from his palanquin. The teacher was a sedentary man and was already smitten by pains in the joints that made bending difficult. The old man and the boy stood for a moment, looking at the garden, both affected by the same sudden gladness. The azaleas were on the point of flowering and the bushes were brushed with a red gleam. Around the pools, irises bloomed white and purple, and the leaves of the fruit trees were a bright fresh new green. A stream flowed through the garden and red-gold carp flickered below its surface. From the far end came the sound of the river at low tide, a gentle lapping, and the familiar smell, beneath the scent of flowers, of mud and fish.
There was an arch in the wall, a conduit through which the stream flowed into the river beyond. A grille of bamboo rails lashed together usually stood against the opening to prevent stray dogs entering the garden-Shigeru noticed it had been pulled to one side, and he smiled inwardly, remembering how he used to go out onto the riverbank the same way. Takeshi was probably playing outside, engaged in a stone battle, no doubt, and his mother would be fretting about him. Takeshi would be scolded later for not being ready, dressed in his best clothes, to greet his older brother, but both mother and brother would be quick to forgive him. Shigeru felt a slight quickening of pleasure at the thought of seeing his brother.
Chiyo called a welcome from the veranda, and he turned to see one of the maids kneeling beside her on the boards with a bowl of water ready to wash their feet. Ichiro gave a deep sigh of satisfaction and, smiling broadly in a way he never did at the castle, walked toward the house-but before Shigeru could follow him there was a shout from beyond the garden wall, and Endo Akira came splashing through the water. He was covered in mud and bleeding from cuts on his forehead and neck.
“Shigeru! Your brother! He fell in the river!”
Not so long ago, Shigeru had engaged in similar battles, and Akira had been one of his junior officers. The Otori boys, along with Akira and Takeshi’s best friend, Miyoshi Kahei, had an ongoing feud with the sons of the Mori family, who lived on the opposite bank and considered the fish weir their own private bridge. The boys fought their battles with round black stones, prised from the silt at low tide. They had all fallen in the river at one time or another and had learned to deal with the water in all its treacherous moods. He hesitated, reluctant to plunge in, disinclined to dirty his clothes and insult his mother by making her wait for him.
“My younger brother can swim!”
“No. He hasn’t come up!”
A lick of fear ran around his mouth, drying it.
“Show me.” He leaped into the stream, and Akira came after him. From the veranda he heard Ichiro call in outrage, “Lord Shigeru! This is no time for playing! Your mother is waiting for you.”
He noticed how low he had to bend to go beneath the arch. He could hear the different notes of the water, the cascade from the garden, the splash of the stream as it flowed through the conduit onto the beach by the river. He dropped onto the mud, felt it close malodorously over his sandals, tore them off, as well as his jacket and his robe, dropping them in the mud, hardly noticing, aware only of the green empty surface of the river. Downstream to his right he saw the first column of the unfinished stone bridge rising from the water, the incoming tide swirling between its footings, and one boat, carried by the same tide, steered by a young girl. In the instant his eyes flashed over her, he saw she was aware of the accident, was rising and stripping off her outer robe, preparing to dive. Then he looked upstream to the fish weir where the two younger Mori boys were kneeling, peering into the water.
“Mori Yuta fell in too,” Akira said.
At that moment there was a splashing disturbance in the water and Miyoshi Kahei surfaced, gasping for breath, his face pale green, his eyes bulging. He took two or three deep breaths, then dived again.
“That’s where they are,” Akira said.
“Go and get the guards,” Shigeru said, but he knew there was no time to wait for anyone else. He ran forward and plunged into the river. A few paces from the bank the river deepened rapidly, and the tide was flowing back strongly, pushing him toward the fish weir. Kahei surfaced again a little in front of him, coughing and spitting water.